The diaries of a migratory bird

DESTROYING MY HOUSE

Like a euphoric ordeal, this week was great in places, plain awful in others:

When working on ‘the self’, these two contrasting ideals often come in tandem to really ‘learn’ what makes us, us.

“Destroy your own house, destroy it now!Don’t wait one more minute! Pull the whole house down!A treasure greater than Pharaoh’s is hidden under it.Go and build with that a million houses!In the end, whether you like it or not,Your house will be pulled down and destroyed,And the treasure under it revealed.But then it will not belong to you –For you can only own the treasureIf you destroy your house yourself.How can you get the pay if you haven’t done the work?”

RUMI

Since I arrived in Sydney, I’ve been studying in ever-increasing, ever-expanding depth the frames that each and every one of us have grown up with. Borne of neurolinguistics and neuroscience, these frames form our points of reference in relation to this world. They’ve helped us form modes of self-protection, and even of our day-to-day operation.

They’ve served to safeguard us as we found our safe footing in the stepping stones of earlier growth and evolution. They are so well entrenched in our subconscious that we are rarely (if ever) able to identify them, let alone see them with any clarity or conscious choice.

Here’s to the acceptance of ‘the self’:
N.B. Before we can begin to accept, we must first see with clarity.

So the question I ask you is, when cleaning out the closet, should you find a beautiful outfit you loved when you were a kid…that favourite ensemble that suited you so well back then…would you wear it today, even if it fitted you?

In the same way it would be unlikely we would wear those old clothes, why do we still keep behaviours learned from childhood, like they still fit or work for us now?

Here’s to being raw, vulnerable, and open to seeing the truth of our being.

Here’s to our glorious fallibility in the joyful pain of growth.

Thank you to the facilitators, coaches, support team, and fellow beings in The Coaching Room that made this journey so wonderful.